Big Reddit Changes Coming?

As you may or may not know, I typically watch the domain name purchases of many of the web’s biggest brands online. And I do it on a regular basis. Some of these purchases are interesting to see, and somenotsomuch.

When a large group of domain names is purchases by an organization that is popular on the web, it usually indicates something big is coming. Today, Conde Nast Digital, the guys behind Reddit.com, purchased a whopping 285 domain names related to Reddit, I began to wonder if something big is in the works for Reddit.

If you did not have specific plans for 285 domain names (which would cost over $2200 to register for one year), you normally would not purchase them. After all, these particular domain names include the Reddit brand (trademark), so if they were simply being purchased to protect the trademark, then that would not be necessary. If someone else had purchased something with “Reddit” in the domain name, then it could be recovered–either with a legal strong arm or the typical UDRP process.

So, at this point I can only speculate. Why would Conde Nast Digital purchase domain names like ShopReddit.com, SkyReddit.com, and VideoReddit.com if they did not have plans for these domains? Apparently “something big” is coming soon, related to Reddit.

Conde Nast Digital purchased 287 domains all at once, on the same day. Only two of them did NOT include the word “Reddit” in them. By the way, here is the list: